November, 2002 Puzzle Contests

Click here to read the rules, to find other contests, or to learn how to participate in current contests.

11/26-12/2/02 Contest:

You must get all three of the following right to be entered to win TWO puzzle pieces:

1. Betty is filling a tub that can hold 8 liters of water. It is
filling at the rate of 0.5 liters per minute. The problem is that it
has a leak, and is draining at the rate of 0.04 liters per minute. To
the nearest second, how long will it take Betty to fill the tub?

2. If you draw 2 squares that intersect in one or more places, what is
the maximum number of separate volumes that can exist, each volume not
being further subdivided?

3. I am known for my Code. If you add a letter before my last one, then
my first 3 letters are never eaten by my last 5 letters. Who am I?

Answers:

1. 17 minutes and 23 seconds. The tub is being filled at an effective
rate of 0.5 - 0.04 = 0.46 liters per minute. The formula is then:

8 liters = 0.46 liters/min x time

divide 8 liters by 0.46 liters/min, and you get the answer.

2. I count 9. If you draw a square, and then draw a square of equal
size centered on the other but turned to the right or left 45 degrees,
you get an 8 pointed star, which contains a total of 9 different
sections. The winner added a correction to my problem with his answer: "9 -- although squares don't have volumes, only areas, so any shapes created by intersecting squares would have area only, not volume."

3. Hamurabi. The words referred to are ham and rabbi.

Winner: Keith J. Nance, Network Engineer

11/25-11/26/02 Contest:

You must get both of the following right to be entered to win:

1. In a game, you are 88 feet from the goal line, but you must get
around the defensive players by running to the left of them. You are 50
feet from the out of bounds line on your left. If you move in a
straight line to the left of the players, directly to the goal line,
what is the maximum distance that you could travel in feet without
stepping out of bounds?

2. Furious is to Fast as Rye is to ?

Answers:

1. 101.21 feet. You can determine this by using the Pythagorean Theorem: A squared + B squared = C squared, where C is the hypotenuse. The two distances given are 2 sides of a triangle, and their intersection is at a 90 degree angle. The distance you are looking for is C, the hypotenuse of the right triange formed.

2. Catcher. The Fast and the Furious and the Catcher in the Rye are both titles (no, "and the" and "in the" are not identical, but "Catcher " is still the best answer, as far as I can tell :-)

Winner: Helen Mowery.

11/22-11/25/02 Contest:

You must get both of the following right to be entered to win:

1. Maybe you should just forget about it. All things should be
considered. Moreover, it's actually very simple. Jot down only those
things that form a pattern. Joke all that you want to, but this is very
serious. As a professor of mine once said, "first things first!"
Sorry, that was irrelevant. Or was it? Now, decide what should come
next.

Absolutely not this one.
Most questions actually have more than one correct answer
Keep to the left, no matter what you do.
Always sharpen your pencils.
Feel your way through this one.
Differences in observation will always persist.

2. If a gray cube like the one described in yesterday's problem (scroll down the page for yesterday's problem) has one side painted white, and two other sides painted black, how many
patterns are possible?

Answers:

1. Differences in observation will always persist. A tough one. The first letter in each of the sentences represents a month. You start with Maybe=March, and move through to Now=November. The next letter must be a D, for December, so "Differences in observation will always persist" is the best choice. These are classic types of Puzz.com problems... the more of these kinds of teasers you see, the more you'll have an idea of what to look for.

2. Three.

Winner: Shirley Wolf, Rockville, MD

11/21-11/22/02 Contest:

You must get both of the following right to be entered to win:

1. Arrows is to Fletcher as Crossword Puzzles is to ?

2. If a gray cube has one side painted white, exactly one color pattern
is formed. Regardless of which side was painted, the cube could be
rotated to reproduce the same pattern. The same is true if one side is
painted black and all of the other sides are unpainted. How many
different patterns are possible if one side is painted white, and
another side is painted black?

2. two. One pattern has the two bordering one another, and the other pattern is with them on opposite sides of the cube.

Winner: Zaheer Jhetam, Benoni, South Africa

11/20-11/21/02 Contest:

You must get both of the following right to be entered to win:

1. Nails is to Bed as Humor is to ?

2. What term is suggested by the following:

*Canine*
Canine
Canine

Answers:

1. Sense. Sense of humor and bed of nails are common terms.

2. Top dog.

Winner: Sarah T. Reney, Old Saybrook, CT

11/19-11/20/02 Contest:

You must get both of the following right to be entered to win:

1. Replace the dashes with a 4 letter word that creates a new word when
added to the end of the first 2 letters shown, and another word when
placed in front of the last 3 letters shown:

DE----END

EXAMPLE: SHIN---GING - The answer is DIG, which creates SHINDIG
and DIGGING.

2. For a certain 267 foot barbed wire fence, a post is planted every 3
feet to hold up the fence. How many posts are needed?

Answers:

1. port. The words are DEPORT and PORTEND.

2. 90. If you divided 267 by 3 and answered 89, you forgot that there has to be a post at each end of the fence. It could, however, be 89 if it were a circular fence.

Winner: Shirley Wolf, Rockville, MD.

11/18-11/19/02 Contest:

You must get both of the following right to be entered to win:

1. What word is suggested by the following?
P
O
O
R

2. X is randomly set as an integer between negative infinity and
positive infinity. Given this, which of the following is most likely to
generate the largest positive number?

A. X squared
B. (X + 1) squared
C. (X - 1) squared
D. X cubed

Answers:

1. downpour

2. C. (X - 1) squared. This will generate the largest positive number nearly half of the time. If X is negative, it generates the largest number. If X is 0, it's a tie between B and C. If X is 1 or 2, it's B, and if it's 3 or more, it's D. So, the most likely is C, second most likely is D, and third most likely is B.

Winner: Jessica Graham, Australia.

11/15-11/18/02 Contest:

The first 4 letters have been removed from each of the following words. Decide which of the following does not belong:

1. Remove my last letter, and you have a type of worker. I am the action of trying to get someone to do something wrong. What am I?

2. I am a type of milk that is used as a beverage. Remove my first 3
letters, and you have what happens when you fire at a target, but do not
strike it. What am I?

Answers:

1. tempt

2. koumiss

Winner: Zaheer Jhetam, Benoni, South Africa.

11/13-11/14/02 Contest:

You must get both of the following right to be entered to win:

1. Each of the following words is extremely unique. In light of this
uniqueness, decide which word does not belong with the others:

formula atheism tenant wonderful

2. dried bark of a tree used as a spice IS TO cinnamon AS an ore of
mercury IS TO ?

Answers:

1. atheism. The sound of the beginning of each is a number or numeric:
formula = 4, atheism = 8th, tenant = 10, wonderful = 1. Atheism is
different from the others because it produces something other than an
integer (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.).

2. cinnabar. This was a tough one!

Winner: Donna Webb.

11/12-11/13/02 Contest:

You must get both of the following right to be entered to win:

1. Keeping in mind that problem #2 uses the opposite logic, decide what
should replace the ? in the following series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 13, ?

2. Keeping in mind that problem #1 uses the opposite logic, decide what
should replace the ? in the following series: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, ?

Answers:

1. 16. In the sequence, when the first number is added to the second,
and the second to the third, etc., a prime number must always result.
13+14=27, and 13+15=28, neither of which is prime, so the answer is 16,
which produces 29, a prime.

2. 13. In the sequence, when the first number is added to the second,
and the second to the third, etc., a prime number must NEVER result.
11+12=23, which is prime, so 11+13=24, which is not prime, is used.
This means the next number is 13.

Winner: Andra Alama. Only 4 people answered both of these correctly.

11/11-11/12/02 Contest:

You must get all of the following right to be entered to win:

Celebrity Synonymous Silliness

Decide what famous person's name is suggested in each of the following
teasers:

4. Salvador Dali - El Salvador is a country, with San Salvador being its
capital; Dali is pronounced and spelled somewhat the same way as Dolly, as in
Dolly Parton.

5. George W. Bush - George Washington supposedly said "I cannot tell a
lie" when he was young and had tried to cut down a cherry tree, upside
down M would be a W, and the words shrub and bush are synonyms.

Winner: Anne Vincent Alexandria, OH.

11/8-11/11/02 Contest:

You must get both of the following right to be entered to win:

1. Paul likes jam, but not jelly. He likes chips, but not taters.
He'll eat a sandwich, but not a burger. Which of the following will he
definitely NOT eat:

fries soup taco orange lemon cherry

2. I just called in the order, and you'll like it, I hope. I grant you
that it makes me torpid. Sure, after eating it, I get a little lazy.
Sometimes I even doze. But I still believe that it is the greatest food
created since sliced bread!

What food am I talking about?

Answers:

1. cherry. Paul doesn't like foods that have more than one of the same
letter in them.

2. Pizza. Take the next to last letter of the last word in each
sentence, and string them together: hoPe torpId laZy doZe breAd = PIZZA

For each of the following puzzlers, a word is given, and then in
parentheses, a number of dashes equal to the number of letters in the
answer. The answer is a SYNONYM of the first word given, or is a TYPE
of the first word given, and RHYMES with the next word given. Example:

scuffle (-----) bite

The answer is FIGHT. Now try these:

1. cereal (--------) storage

2. box (-----) vest

3. plunder (-------) village

4. fish (----) bad

5. spirit (-----) pool

Answers:

1. porridge

2. chest

3. pillage

4. shad or scad

5. ghoul

Winner: David Bickham.

11/6-11/7/02 Contest:

Decide which of the following does not belong with the others:
Taurus
dog
sirloin
hitting the target
telling a lie
running a mile

Answer: running a mile. The others all involve the word BULL in some way.
The zodiac sign Taurus is a bull, a type of dog is a bulldog, sirloin is
made from bulls (I believe Donna Smock indicated sirloin is actually from a steer, but I could not confirm that ALL sirloin is not from a bull, and it's still the same animal, although I appreciate the info, and her case is fairly strong if she is right), hitting the target can be called a bull's eye, and telling a lie is often referred to as bull, or a derivative of it :-). I received alternate answers, but in no case could I find how "running a mile" was strongly associated with a bull, which leaves it the "odd one out." Bull Run and The Running of the Bulls were mentioned, but the "mile" part could not be tied in. If Donna is right in her assertion, my puzzle is weakened, but I still stand by my answer, although perhaps slightly off balance ;-)

Winner: Chelcie Lynn. We had TREMENDOUS response to this problem - perhaps a record.

11/5-11/6/02 Contest:

One more analogy puzzler, and then we'll try something else:

strung is to tied as ham is to ?

Replace the ? with the correct word or name.

Answer: hog. Hamstrung and hogtied. Some people answered "tongue" (as in tongue-tied) and other things, but they lack the porcine element, and as Colin McEwen pointed out, hamstrung and hogtied have very similar meanings. I noticed that many of our non-US respondents who often get the puzzles right missed this one, so I am betting "hogtied" is a more commonly used word in the US, giving you "locals" an unfair advantage on this one :-)

Winner: Sharon Hunt. 4 people answered this one correctly.

11/4-11/5/02 Contest:

Voice is to Yoakam as Razor is to ?

Replace the ? with the correct word or name.

Answer: Occam or Ockham. To learn more about Will (as we call him here at Puzz.com), or his Razor, go to http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Occam%27s+Razor - just as Yoakam uses his voice (he's a singer), Occam used his Razor. The names are spelled somewhat similarly, and sound very similar as well.

Winner: Joe McCormack, New Bloomfield, Missouri

11/1-11/4/02 Contest:

Gilmore game Strike

What does the above puzzle mean?

Answer: happy-go-lucky was my original answer. Happy Gilmore, go is a game, and Lucky Strike (cigarettes). Here is another one I accepted, sent in by Kristen Taylor:

GIRLS NIGHT OUT

GILMORE______ (GIRLS)

GAME_______(NIGHT)

STRIKE_______(OUT)

Makes sense, eh? That may even be a better answer than my original one.